I’m a Kentucky fan and while I think UK should be the #1 team, the rankings have more to do with the fact that Syracuse lost more recently, although I think they’ve been more vulnerable in late game situations. Either way, if Syracuse had lost in December and UK lost in February, the rankings might be reversed, although Syracuse was not in the pre-season #1 discussion–It was all UK and UNC, with the latter being given the edge. Syracuse had to fight its way to the top, UK was already there.

Kansas has improved dramatically since November.

And Kentucky hasn’t?

Not a problem. No, I only looked at MSG games and also included the additional games I had previously mentioned for added context. Here are the other BCS Level Non-Con games Syracuse has played away from the Dome, but not at MSG over the same time frame:

2011-12: @NC State
2010-11: In Atlantic City against Georgia Tech and Michigan
2009-10: Florida in Tampa. Second half of the home-away series with Memphis was played at the Carrier Dome
2008-09: @ Memphis, second half of home and away series with Virginia
2007-08: @ Virginia
2006-07: weird away game at Canisius, also played Wichita St. and Baylor at home at the Carrier Dome
2005-06: another weird away game at Towson state
2004-05: I missed two MSG games against Miss State and Florida. Played another weird away game at Drexel
2003-04: @ St. Bonaventure, @ Missouri, Michigan State came to the Carrier Dome
2002-03: Georgia Tech and Missouri both came to the dome, @ Michigan State
2001-02: @ Albany has repayment to New York State helping to fix te Carrier Dome roof, @ Georgia Tech, @ Tennessee, NC State came to the dome.

So, all in all 16 away games not at MSG and 19 away games at MSG over an 11 year span. That’s 35 games in all for average of 3.5 games a year away from the Dome, not counting conference scheduling. For the percentage breakdown that’s 46% of non-conference road games away from MSG and 54% of them at MSG.

Again, not perfect scheduling, but it does help Syracuse and really college basketball as a whole. It gets Syracuse and Michigan State playing quite a bit, for instance. It also gets Syracuse and Florida playing quite a bit as well.

I’m also not attempting to downplay Kentucky’s quality wins against Kansas or UNC, but I am attempting to put more light on the shoddy argument that they are simply significantly better than beating Marquette and Georgetown. Marquette and Georgetown are both quality teams with both players and coaches extremely familiar with Syracuse’s style of play. Neither of those teams are chopped liver and neither of those wins should be taken lightly (nor should Kentucky’s victories over UNC and Kansas).

So, the facts (as I have not disputed) are that Syracuse does generally play 1-2 games at MSG during the course of a basketball season (not including games against St. John’s and the BE Tourney). What’s perhaps more interesting, at least to me, is that the bias that is present against Syracuse playing games there (the home court advantage, the fact that they never leave the state of NY, etc) is a recent uprising that has trended moreso since Syracuse has more frequently won games there. In other words, there seems to be an attempt to de-legitimize Syracuse’s accomplishments by various outlets, bloggers, etc. Again, I’d prefer to look at facts and statistics and the facts are that Syracuse plays alot of good quality teams. Sometimes they play them at MSG. Sometimes they play them at the Carrier Dome. Sometimes they play them at other neutral sites. Sometimes they play them in their home arena. I will never say that Syracuse plays a perfect schedule, but I will defend them when bloggers, fans, etc. accuse them of playing a poor schedule.

One more fact that often goes under reported is that smaller teams generally have a greater monetary incentive to play at the Carrier Dome early in the season as Syracuse is a tremendous draw in terms of crowd. These smaller teams will often make more for that one game than they will for any other game the entire season and they do it on the road. Syracuse also has a monetary incentive to stay closer to home for the same reason. So my question here is this: How is wrong for both schools to reap the fiscal advantage inherent to playing at the Carrier Dome?

I think the S-Curve (snaking) is being utilized less and less each year thanks to the pod system. For this reason, as long as UK ends up in Louisville for rounds 2 and 3, I don’t care if they are first or second #1 seed because I don’t think that will ultimately affect who their #2 seed is as much as it might have in the past.

In fact, teams like Uconn, Rutgers, Villanova, and Seton Hall are all significantly closer to NYC than Syracuse

It’s not just the travel distance – which of those schools has the largest fan base in NYC. I’m guessing its close between Cuse and UConn. SHU and Nova are small private schools, and most of Nova’s fan base is in Philly. Rutgers has stunk for so long that i doubt they make much of a dent. SU has been marketing themselves as “New York’s College Team” for the exact purpose of giving themselves more access to MSG and more fans in the NYC area in general.

Anyway, would anyone like to make the honest argument that they believe that Syracuse didn’t play real road games when playing Florida in Tampa and Kansas in Kansas City? Here’s a list of teams that Syracuse has played away from the Carrier Dome out of conference since the 2008-2009 season:

NC State, Michigan State, Michigan, Georiga Tech, California, North Carolina, Florida (twice) Kansas, Memphis, Ohio State, Washington.

This is not to paint the picture that Syracuse has played a perfect schedule, but it is meant to illustrate that the fact that Syracuse doesn’t shy away from playing good teams. There seems to be a perception that all Syracuse does is play Marshall, Tulane, and Cornell but that perception is different from reality.

Perhaps my final point is that when we are attempting to quantify what teams have done, we often attempt to think about what they will do. That’s a natural reaction, but it is also wrong. In many aspects of analysis we are attempting to look at what may happen (the purchase of a stock for instance) as opposed to what has happened. Measurement, however, is much different from projection and in the case of seeding we are 100% beholden to what has happened as opposed to what we believe will happen. As such, it behooves us all to look at fact rather than myths and statistics rather than beliefs.

/10 seed
//ok, NIT

With an 18-game schedule in that conference you can understand why you might think there is no incentive to schedule those November and December road games against heavyweights.

In the Big East you have always had many opportunities for resume building wins, home and road.

Syracuse doesn’t “game the system”, they just play in the right conference for that schedule to make sense.

Syracuse has completely worked the system this year

Krzyzewksi is the master of this. Don’t schedule too many “loseable” games in the non-conf and avoid on-campus road games if at all possible, but make sure the sacrificial lamb teams aren’t so bad they kill your SOS. He knows how to use Duke’s stature as a team casual fans in big cities, particularly in the Northeast, will buy tickets to see.

The 2004 final sucking was on Georgia Tech. UCONN played fine

Oh yeah, I’m not blaming them.